Risky business

Banter
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I am sure there’s a lot of RW users who either don’t know or don’t care about the risky business of installing browser extensions in their browsers.

Well, maybe this article will convince you not to use them…

1 Like
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I just got the notification from forum’s administration, that the above post has been flagged by community as spam.

How is it possible to mistake a warning about potential danger of using browser extensions as a spam/advertisement/promotion? Personally, I am totally baffled…

I am very particular about privacy and security on the web. I subscribe to several sources of information in this matter, by way of RSS. I realize that not many people do the same, so I feel it may be beneficial to all if I mention on the forum some of the threats that could be relevant to them. I couldn’t possibly fathom that these short notes from me might be mistaken for spam.

I would be grateful if someone explained to me, what exactly triggered the “spam” reaction in them…

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That was a flag created by a user. I removed that flagging again.

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It wasn’t me but I think I can offer some suggestions as to why someone might flag this.

  1. The title is colourful, designed to pull you in, rather than informative
  2. The message doesn’t actually explain whether there’s a specific browser extension being discussed
  3. The link isn’t labelled clearly

In short, the message could read like a ‘come on’ to click that link and could appear suspicious, especially to someone who’s been caught out before.

3 Likes
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@Marten, @Jannis, @rob.beattie – Thank you, guys, I appreciate your responses.

So, I will continue posting warnings in the future, but perhaps I will be more careful as to what kind of language to use. 🙄

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Yes,. please continue to post those warnings. That one was very informative.

I clicked on the link to the article without thinking. I noticed that “Brave Browser” is not on the list pictured above the article. I switched to that last year, and Brave Browser has much built-in protection. Also, I recommend Little Snitch, which I rely on to detect intrusions and prevent unwarranted data from leaving my computer. And MalwareBytes, of course.

1 Like